


And then,

by homesickblues



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Loss, Mentions of Poe, The Force, and also ben, force-strong leia, i'm just really emotional about leia ok, mentions of han/leia, set pre-force awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 14:18:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5747581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homesickblues/pseuds/homesickblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leia Organa can’t go home anymore.</p><p> </p><p>Not that she really has a home anymore to go to.</p><p> </p><p>**</p><p> </p><p>A short drabble about Leia trying to reconcile what happened to her son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And then,

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StellarRequiem (Ridyr)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=StellarRequiem+%28Ridyr%29).



> So I was watching the original trilogy yesterday and thinking about how everyone was so pissed that Leia has never gotten to use the force so I decided this:
> 
> F*ck yeah Leia is strong with the force. But she's smart and she _knows_ that she has more of the dark side in her than Luke, so she chooses to repress it and not let herself be tempted. 
> 
> I just made her reason for repressing it Ben because I like pain.

Leia Organa can’t go home anymore.

 

Not that she really has a home anymore to go to.

 

But home to her isn’t so much any of the various places they’d attempted to root themselves as a family over the years, or even a particular planet. The spaces they once filled hold no particular sentiment to her now. They serve as nothing more than the backdrop of memories; the places where she’d discovered happiness in a toddler’s dimples that looked so much like his father’s.

 

The memories… those are her home. They’re all she’s ever really _had_ to call home after Alderaan was turned into nothing more than fire and rubble right in front of her. Then, like now, the memories of _home_ became specters, happiness turning to pain like ash. Then, she’d promised herself to never put stakes in the ground, never attach herself to _anyone_ because the happiness wasn’t worth the pain. Because happiness never seemed to be anything but temporary; a passing summer breeze.

 

But things rarely happen as they’re planned. A smirking man with blood pulsing with courage like liquid fire digs his claws into her soul and for once, for the first time since _home_ became nothing more than a nightmarish memory, she decides to try again with happiness, with love.

 

And she loved Han, but demanded the same, and things were difficult, and things were _impossible_ , but then:

 

Ben.

 

She has seen many suns in her lifetime. Massive, yellow, orange, small, radiant, glistening…

 

Ben burned brighter than all of them.

 

He was an accident, as most things in Han’s life were, but luckily that happened to be one of the things Leia loved most about him. Ben came into the world as a result of his father’s brazen way of stumbling through life without intention, but with reverence and passion, and Leia wouldn’t have had it any other way.

 

She knows very little about her mother, and less about who she _really_ was, but maternal bonds are sometimes so powerful that somewhere deep inside of her she can feel her mother’s love; feel her warmth and her light. Growing up, she’d always imagined a beautiful woman with the sun in her hair. She didn’t know if it was a memory or a ghost, but sometimes in dreams she could feel soft hands caressing the skin of her face, a smooth voice whispering in her ear that _one day, you will change the fate of the galaxy_ and so it was.

 

She knows, however, that her mother loved her, regardless of how much time they spent together, because the love she felt for Ben from the moment he was born feels like something ancient, something inherited in a bone-deep sense.

 

After the fall of the Empire, Luke had explained to Leia that the Force was strong with her, too. But she knew, then, that she had far too much Vader in her to peruse the ways of the Jedi. As she started to feel the Force more – the sensation of it pumping through her veins and swirling all around her in every living thing – she could feel the pull. It started out soft, more a suggestion than anything. She’d let Luke teach her cursory Force methods, mostly out of curiosity and wander and obstinacy to simply let her brother have all the fun. It was when her powers started rapidly increasing that sometimes she felt herself teetering dangerously close to the edge of a dark precipice.

 

There was no balance. _There must be two_. Dark and the light. Luke was _too good_. The light shone through Luke like he was its very origin: blinding and warm and fierce.

 

So she stepped away. She closed off most facets in her body where she could feel the Force raging to be let through, let in.

 

And then came Ben.

 

Han was so amazed that something _he_ produced could be so strong with the Force. It made him smug and Leia had laughed at him for it, because _no, it wasn’t you_. Luke had spent hours with him when he was no more than two years old, communicating with him silently and contemplating the reaches of his potential.  

 

“He is strong, Leia,” Luke had said as they both watched him running carefree through a field of flowers, the sun silhouetting him, “He is going to be very powerful one day. I will train him in the ways of the Jedi.”

 

And Leia had said nothing, but she had panicked, because Ben had more _her_ in him than he had _Luke_. She had felt the pull so strongly sometimes. But her love for Ben was stronger. Stronger than the Force, even.

 

So she pushed all worry away and allowed Luke to train her son.

 

She was rewarded with his childhood. Luke, nor their father, had trained as a child, so Luke allowed Ben to grow up a normal boy, with his family and friends. His laughter would fill the halls of her ships and bases where he’d run and play, a carefree child with a naughty streak his father thought he’d passed on with pride, but Leia knew he’d probably gotten from her as well.

 

The memories she holds the fondest are the ones where the three of them were alone. A family; something she thought she had once but faded into shades of ugly grey and death. _This_ family, she’d thought, was _hers_. She’d made it for herself, built it with bare hands and a careful heart, and she’d allowed herself to grow roots and _love_ because how could she not? When she saw Han playing with Ben in the evenings, or when Han hitched Ben into his lap to tell him epic stories of their lives, she felt the light all around her, flooding out the dark and every temptation that came with it. And it was beautiful. And Ben was beautiful; his hair was shaggy and dark, darker than his father’s, but his eyes were bright and very much _hers_.

 

And she loved him. And she held him up in the light, opening herself to the Force just so she could bathe him in it, fill him up with warmth and happiness and courage and loyalty and _love_. And she watched him grow, long limbs and a handsome face with a healthy head of black hair she was always fond of stroking back into place after his father had teasingly ruffled it. And she helped him pack when Luke called upon him to begin his training when he was thirteen, hugging him a little too-tight despite his protests of “ _Mom! I’ll be back in no time! You won’t even miss me_.” and “ _Mom! I’ll be_ fine _, Uncle Luke will take care of me_.”

 

“ _I love you_ ,” she’d replied.

 

“ _Mom,”_ he’d said in response with a blush and a smile.

 

And she _let him go_ , watching him walk off to the Falcon with his father’s hand grasping his shoulder tightly, knowing it would likely remain there for their entire journey to meet Luke at the temple with the rest of the Jedi. He turned and gave her one last crooked smile and a wave before disappearing into the ship after his father, Chewie patting his back and climbing in after him.

 

And she never saw him again.

 

When she was first told of what he’d done, the dark flooded through her like cold, mechanical coils, gripping her from the inside and trying to _pull her in_ , but she held strong and kept her face even as she listened to how her son, the love of her life, her _baby boy_ , had murdered _children_. Had murdered members of his own _family_ , people he’d known since he was little with dimples and bright eyes.

 

For the second time in her life, she witnessed her _home_ go up in smoke right in front of her own eyes.

 

She held her head high, her posture stiff, and relayed orders to send out men to seek out these “Knights of Ren”.

 

“Bring him back alive,” she’d whispered to Poe, her newest but brightest young pilot. He’d left with a solemn nod and a sympathetic stare.  

 

She made it to her quarters with Han trailing behind her before something inside of her shattered and she fell to her knees, breaths coming out as jagged sobs.

 

Han had stood behind her stiffly and afraid as the air in the room changed, pieces of furniture started flinging themselves against walls, and everything started to _vibrate_.

 

Something caught her eye, then, causing everything to stop in mid-air. A chest had flown open and its contents were thrown out. A small stuffed toy landed in front of her, hand-stitched. An Ewok, a gift from Chewie when Ben was around four years old. Han and Chewie had laughed about it, and Ben had clung to it like the end of the world. Leia remembered many nights she’d had to gently take it from him as he slept, setting it beside his bed.

 

She reached out and took the toy into her hands, staring at it in shock.

 

“Han,” she’d said, feeling his presence behind her, reminding her that she wasn’t alone.

 

He was on the floor beside her in a flash, wrapping his arms around her from behind. Solid. _Present_.

 

“Han,” she’d said again, but softer, “Han, _Ben…_ Han… _our son_ … _”_

 

“I know,” Han’s answer was too soft, too gruff, “I know. He’s gone,”

 

Every object suspended in the air fell then at once, and soon the only movement in the room were the streaky dust motes moving through the filtered light coming through the windows.

 

And so, she blocks out the memories as best she can and calls no place home again because any other option seems like punishment which maybe, she thinks, she deserves, but is too proud to dignify.

 

Han seemed to do something similar, as one morning he was gone without a word. She was angry at first, but that too dissolved into nothing more than the dull ache of absence.

 

She sets out all her best, including Poe, to look for Luke once they all come back empty handed trying to find the Knights of Ren and this so-called “Supreme Leader”. She knows Luke’s likely the only one in the galaxy who can effectively clean this mess up. She knows, however, it won’t be easy, as even with the Force being untrained and raw as it moves through her, she can feel the ripples of his grief from wherever he is, like pulses of ice and fire all at once. Short bursts of raw energy.

 

She wonders if he can feel hers too.

 

Her connection to Luke gives her hope, however faint. She often finds herself feeling through the galaxy, trying to find her son. She used to be able to feel Ben’s light from any distance, but now that it was gone, the dark lurks like shadows and never makes itself known. She knows too, that if she searches too hard in the dark she might get pulled in too, as the danger of it has always been there.

 

One night, however, as she lies in bed and fights to push back the memories that keep her up at night, she feels it.

 

Gentle, soft, effervescent, but acutely potent, like the fast zap of a Force beam or static electricity. It comes out of the darkness, out of the blackness of space, and reaches for her.

 

She reaches back, and for a moment there’s a thread connecting them. Two high-voltage wires stretching through the dark, sending sparks and smoke into the night. When they meet, everything explodes in sunlight and brilliance and she _feels him_.

 

And then it’s gone, the thread broken, as fast as it came. She grasps for him blindly but she can’t find him, only the absence of him, and the memories flood back like a breach in a dam in her mind.

 

She lets the memories fill her. She lets herself feel the joy, the pain, the loss, and horror, the fear. She sees dimples and bright eyes and a crooked smile and hears mirthful, innocent laughter and it pushes out all the dark until all she sees is light: unflinching and steady from where it shines.

 

She knows then that somewhere, somehow, in some far stretch of the universe that she can’t reach, there’s a boy out there trying to find what he’s lost: home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this. I wrote it on a whim, being really emotional about Leia, Ben, and also listening to the new Panic! at the Disco song "House of Memories".


End file.
